The District Committee. /Role of the District.

[Eamonn]

My copy of The District is kinda old (7 30176 33079 2) 1993 Printing.

It lists the functions of the District as

1/ Membership

2/ Finance

3/ Program

4/ Unit Service.

 

When it talks about the District Committee is states:

The committee coordinates all the functions of the District for the purposes of:

A/ Organizing and supporting quality units.

B/ Carrying out the policies and objectives of the Council

C/ Extending the program to the greatest number of youth.

 

Just as different Troops do things differently, I'm sure that different Districts do things a little bit differently from even the District next door.

 

I hate attending meetings which are held just because the calendar tells me that it's time for a meeting!!

As District Chair, I had to attend!!

But I tried very hard not to:

Have meetings that went over 90 minutes (I tried to keep them to 60 minutes but that never worked)

Have an Agenda that only required the people who were doing something to attend.

(Finance Committee Members met in November to plan the FOS Campaigns, which kicked off in February. The goal was to be done by St. Patrick's Day with a final report in April. After April they were done till the next November.)

Unit Service was covered by a report from the District Commissioner. -Most times if there was a problem he or she had contacted the people who needed to be contacted and what ever was happening was already under way.

I did try to get the Committee Chairs to meet with their Committees before the District Meeting. That way they could just make a report, which didn't require a long drawn out discussion.

I put a lot of time and effort into making sure that we didn't have committees of one!!

We did set goals, for just about everything. (We didn't always meet them!!)

If I seen something wasn't being done, I would contact the person who was supposed o be doing it and find out why?

I did hold people accountable to do what they said thy were going to do.

When and if it was available we did work toward helping the Council achieve and meet the goals laid out in the Council long term strategic plan. Sadly at times there wasn't one or it was so old that no one remembered what was in it!!

When I was new I did try to include some sort of training, but this just didn't seem to work! So I gave up.

Eamonn.

 

 

[Lisabob]

very timely, thank you Eamonn. We recently selected a new District Chair. He has convinced Council to try to run a training session for district committee members. First one in my memory, at least. Unfortunately the council gave us a week's notice and scheduled it during a school holiday so many people had prior plans and can't attend. Hopefully they'll reschedule it.

 

I've attended as few district committee meetings as I could manage in the past. The ones I've attended weren't useful to me. They tended to consist of people griping about their scouting pet peeves and how things "used to be" and passing along outdated info (esp. about cub scouting!). I find it hard to keep my mouth shut when that happens, I admit, even though I probably ought to just shrug it off. If the district committee is functional, that's one thing. If it is a coffee & gripe session, I have no time for that. I'm hoping we'll see a move toward "useful" in the coming months but I admit I'm not even really sure what that would mean - useful how?

 

 

[Bob White]

There are 2,200 District in the BSA. As you can imagine there are some that do their job very well and some that do it very badly and some that are somewhere inbetween.

 

It all comes down to leadership and selecting the right people for the right job and training them to do it. Such is true of any committee.

 

I think most scouters would be amazed to learn what a district committee meeting is really supposed to be and when the real work of the district is supposed to be done.

 

And few understand the relationship between the Council and the district correctly. (if they did then District patches would have no importance to them.)

 

(Eammon I believe the most recent version is the 2006 printing of the 1999 edition with the last major chnges being made in 2004(#33070E)).

[Eamonn]

Lisabob

Not sure if this will help answer your question or not?

For us (The District Committee) having goals made it seem useful and that we were in fact doing something and going somewhere.

I in my infinite wisdom!! (LOL) Decided that we were sick of hearing about Quality District.

The Council has four Districts and we were the smallest.

We knew that maybe being the biggest wasn't a realistic goal, so we came up with the goal that we didn't want to remain the smallest.

On the outside this looks just like a goal for the Membership Committee, but we set goals for Training, getting more leaders trained. Finding out why people weren't getting trained (What we were doing wrong and right)

We looked at how we were communicating with the volunteers.

We looked at District events. (We found that we had too many! Troops wanted less events and the events we did offer had to be better planned.)

When it came to finance, I fought with the SE for a District goal (a total) in place of 3 separate goals (Family, Community, and District)This meant that we could put more effort into developing the Community campaign and while we of course still did the family campaign we didn't need to keep bugging the volunteers to dig deeper.

Working with the local cable company we managed to blow our project goals out of the water and do a better job of marketing Scouting in our area.

When the numbers came out that moved us from the smallest to the second smallest we had a big bash and celebrated out victory. We did try to take second place, but it didn't happen.

Sadly today we are back being the smallest District again.

Eamonn.

(Having Chairs give written reports does away with a lot of unnecessary debates.)

 

Thanks Bob -I see that Eammonn guy is on the lose again!! (-Just joking!)(This message has been edited by Eamonn)

[Axeman]

I think most scouters would be amazed to learn what a district committee meeting is really supposed to be and when the real work of the district is supposed to be done.

 

Sir

 

I would like to learn what a District committee meeting is really supposed to be. I would like to know when the real work of the District is supposed to be done.

 

In my direct and recent experience, BSA publications such as "The District" (#33070E 2006) and "Handbook For District Operations; Roles and Responsibilities of the Operating Committee and Commissioner Staff," part II, "Guidelines For District Committee and Operating Committee Meetings," (referenced on page 22 of publication #33070E) have little to do with the reality that is our District committee.

 

It looks good on paper, tho. Are there District committees that actually operate according to the literature?

 

Off topic a little, my copy of publication #33070E (2006) features our District highlighted (so to speak) on the cover. Very strange.

 

[Bob White]

DDibben's

 

There are 2,200 District meetings held every month, in how many do yo have direct knowledge of their operations?

 

The one's in your council have the same ability as any pther district to follow the program and purpose of the committee as detailed in the manual, if they choose to.

 

Over the years I have seen District committees that followed the BSA formmat and ones that did not, sometimes in the same Dis=trict just under different Chairpersons.

 

 

ANY group's meeting quality is dependent on the group's leader. Selection ans training are the key.

 

 

 

 

[Axeman]

Sir

 

I apologize for not being clear.

 

When you wrote "I think most scouters would be amazed to learn what a district committee meeting is really supposed to be and when the real work of the district is supposed to be done," I was eager to be "amazed," thus my poorly composed response.

 

I would like to "learn what a District committee meeting is really supposed to be."

 

I would like to know "when the real work of the District is supposed to be done."

 

I would like to know if there BSA District committees that actually operate according to the suggested guidelines.

 

YIS

DDibben

singular, not plural.

 

[Cubmaster Randy]

Our District committee meetings are standing meetings on the first thursday of every month and are attended by the committee chairs and any interested scouters. The COR's do not normally attend, but are they welcome too. We do send out special invitations to the COR's to attend our Annual business meeting.

 

The agenda has not changed much over the 5 years that I have been attending. We may also do a post mortem of a major event or have a discussion about an upcoming event. Most of the work is done outside of the meeting. The chairs give a report of what is going on and answers questions or concerns

 

*opening

*introductions and welcome

*DE minute

*Committee Reports

*Communications

*Membership

*Finance

*Program

Activities

Advancement

Religious Relations

*Training

*Commissioner Service (DC minute)

 

 

[Bob White]

Sorry for misunderstanding DDibbens, I thought you said that you had a copy of The District in your posession?

 

Most scouters, especially those at the unit level, have never seen that manual, and most have never attended a District meeting, so the general understanding of what a district is and what they do, and how they do it, is largely misunderstood by the majority of volunteers.

 

I see no need to reprint the contents of a 31 page brochure on a forum. But since you have a copy of the manual check out page 21 under the heading Meeting of the District. It addresses some of the specific complaints that have been shared thus far.

 

BW

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[Axeman]

Sir

 

If few people have seen "The District," and I will take your word for that as I do not know, I will guess that fewer still have seen the "Handbook For District Operations; Roles and Responsibilities of the Operating Committee and Commissioner Staff." I have both.

 

Book learnin' can sometimes be a bad thing. I have a tendency to apply and/or compare what I learn to the real-world situations I encounter. When I cannot reconcile what I observe with what I have learned, I am compelled to find out why. One of my many faults.

 

If I have unintentionally made disparaging remarks about your District committee, or anyone else's District committee, I apologize.

 

[break]

 

Cubmaster Randy:

 

Sir

 

I know that CORs do not "normally attend" District committee meetings. This has been made very clear to me by our District committee. I am trying to understand why the CORs are not involved. The phrases invited to attend and/or welcome to attend are, truthfully, annoying as heck. I mean no specific offense to you; your turn of phrase simply brought this to my mind.

 

Simplistically, district members-at-large are invited, or recruited, by the District nominating committee.

 

Interested scouters are welcome to attend (as far as I know).

 

In my opinion, CORs are required to attend by virtue of their acceptance of the appointment, and by my understanding of the BSA (my emphasis added in the following):

 

From the "Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America," Article VI, section 3, clause 7;

 

"In territory supervised by local councils, each chartered organization shall appoint a volunteer, other than the unit leader or assistant unit leader, as its chartered organization representative to represent it as a member of the district committee and as a voting member of the local council."

 

Paraphrased from "The Chartered Organization Representative," BSA publication #33118D (2004), page 8:

 

CORs are the chartering organization's "voice" on the council and district committee. Most district committees meet monthly on a set date. This enables the COR, and the organization the COR represents, to take advantage of available district service. At the monthly district committee meetings, CORs can contribute facts from the units standpoint based upon the CORs knowledge of them. This is valuable information to the committee and "helps it to keep its program realistic and tuned to the needs of the units."

 

From the "Annual Charter Agreement" No. 28-182R

 

Appoint a chartered organization representative who is a member of the organization and will coordinate all unit operations within it. He or she will represent the organization to the Scouting district and serve as a voting member of the local council.

 

From "Training the Chartered Organization Representative" (http://www.scouting.org/relationships/04-113/04.html)

 

The council is a grassroots organization in that there are more CORs than council members at large. So the control of the council belongs to the chartered organizations.

 

From what I have read in forums such as this, and from what I have learned thru correspondence with other CORs throughout the BSA, members-at-large control the districts and councils rather than the organizations that charter scouting as a part of their youth outreach program. In my opinion, this conflicts with the published intent of the BSA.

 

District committees composed entirely of members-at-large may become myopic, self-perpetuating good-old-boy organisms that are not attuned to the needs/wants/desires of the units the committee is charged with supporting. The annual election process becomes farcical when the only attending, voting members are the same members-at-large that voted for themselves the year before. An election is the privilege of making a choice. If there is no choice, then the annual election is merely the endorsement of the status quo by the people who created the status quo.

 

I do not wholly agree with how our District committee meetings are conducted ("Mere reporting by members is insufficient reason for the committee to meet" #33070E page 22), but I keep my mouth shut and attend. I assumed the responsibility of attendance when I accepted the appointment as representative for our chartering organization. I offer to assist (and I am turned down every time by the same committee members who "have too much to do"), I give input when appropriate, but for the most part, I watch our particular District mechanism grind slowly, tediously, mind-numbingly on.

 

and I still do not know where or when the actual work of the district committee is being conducted.

 

 

[Beavah]

 

Yah, DDibben, you'll forgive me for smiling, eh? I reckon your tale is fairly common. My guess is that districts that run "by the books" are relatively few.

 

Partly, it's because districts are an artificial construct. The real entity is the Council. So one district role - Finance - really has very little meaning beyond an FOS target amount. The actual finance work of budgeting and strategic financial planning and financing of program and such are all done at the council level.

 

A second district role - Membership - the folks involved really have no understanding of nor control over. They tend to spend their time sharing statistics. True membership growth in a mature district really depends on unit program, which they can't influence. In an immature district, it might involve developing new CO relationships, but that's typically "specialty" work that the committee members aren't always good at. Ironically, COR's would probably be best at it, but they're not at the meetings.

 

The third role - Program - tends to focus on a few events a year. A camporee, a Merit Badge Day, etc. The actual work for those things is done by whatever volunteer(s) are leading up the event, not by the committee.

 

The fourth role - Unit Service - is handled by the training folks and by the commissioner staff (where it exists at all). The actual work for those two groups is done individually or in their own subcommittee meetings, under the direction of the district training chair and district commissioner. Where it is done at all.

 

So what happens at a District Committee meeting? Well, yeh get to hear mind-numbing reports from others, and then hang out with da old guys!

 

Beavah

 

[Lisabob]

In the thread on COs, Beavah said the following:

 

"If we bring a pastor to a district committee meeting to listen to someone complain about last year's hot dogs at the pinewood derby being cold, he's never going to return, eh? "

 

Heck Beav, if that's what is happening at district committee meetings, you aren't going to get ME there either and I'm part of the district committee! (And by the way, this is one major, major reason why I DON'T go if I can help it.)

 

As for the business about districts being merely administrative arms of the council, that's true. But just as the saying "think global, act local" has some value (beyond the triteness of it), so too can we who really care about scouting (but don't have big bucks to deliver to buy a seat on the council exec board) have more influence at the district level than at the council level.

 

For example in "my" district we're planning a variety of program aids, events, and RT-type efforts aimed at helping units do a better job of member retention (current focus on Webelos-Scout given the time of year). I can't pull that off council-wide, it is just too big an area. But I can pull it off in our district, I think. Also in "my" district we're working on re-thinking our approach to the Venturing program. That's a tall order because it has been in disarray for some time. Our whole district has fewer scouts registered with Crews than you might find in gwd's Troop right now. This is a labor-intensive effort and district-size is about all I can imagine biting off right now.

 

Maybe my view of districts as useful and manageable "chunks" is a result of the fact that we are apparently a rather small district by national standards? 16 troops, 30/31 packs, and a couple of crews. Only 1 truly "mega troop" of 100+ scouts with most troops being at 25-40 scouts. We cover only 7 distinct communities, all in the same county. Maybe there are much larger districts, both in # of scouts or units and in geographic area where a focus on district is less well defined or useful.

[Eamonn]

Yes the District is an arm of the Council.

"Carrying out the policies and objectives of the Council" is one of the purposes of the District Committee.

 

I do see the District Committee as being broken down into smaller committees, which do overlap and are dependent on each other. The District meeting does provide an opportunity to coordinate these efforts and make sure that everyone is on the same page.

I whole heartedly agree that the program is delivered by the really important people the Unit Leaders.

Districts should not interfere with the running of a unit. However he District can and hopefully does play a big part in supporting the units.

The District Chairman is a voting member of the Council Executive Board and does represent the District at these meeting. Which is where the policies and objectives of the Council are decided.

The real work isn't done at a meeting. (I don't know of very many meetings that do any real work!! - At work I attend a lot of meetings where I'm informed of what is happening, what needs to be done? I report what has happened, what my needs and the needs of the department are and I'm given updates of any changes that might be coming up. I return to my department and share this with the people who will be doing the real work.)

The meeting can help ensure that short and long term goals are being met. It can help provide establish plans that might be needed to support a unit that needs it.

Eamonn